


Lupin, Who Was Staying in the House with Sirius

by ProfessorDrarry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends, Frottage, Grimmauld Place, M/M, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Reunion Sex, Second War with Voldemort, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:31:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9489098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: One thing was very clear to him, suddenly; this was not going to be some languid, drawn out love affair. They may not be teenagers anymore, but neither was either of them patient in this moment. Remus vowed to waste no more time.The time had been wasted enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I accidently Wolfstar-ed because of reading OotP too closely for my AU story. Just a quick OS because of the sentence that made it canon ;) As it is my first r/s I'd love a review if you have a moment!

The house was dark. The house was dark and gloomy and smelt of rank, old, mouldy stuffed _things_. More importantly, the house was the house where things had always been this way. This house had always meant darkness and exhaustion, and he had always felt trapped and broken here. It should have been normal that he felt that way now, but a lot had happened over the last fourteen years, and it was no longer that simple. It didn't help that this house was once again his prison, once again his first and most inescapable tormenter.

The only solution that Sirius Black had been able to come up with so far had been to pace. He'd been pacing for much of the afternoon, even as the flurry of activity went on around him, since the house was currently full of overbearing mothers, and numerous red-headed children, and warmth and food and activity, and Harry. These things should have been making him feel better, but they were not. Sirius scowled as he felt a presence, _the_ presence enter the room. He didn't turn around, but he felt his mood grow impossibly more fowl.

"Where have you been?"  
  
"What?" Remus said. Sirius could feel him boring questioning holes into the back of his head. He finally turned around and simply raised an eyebrow. He refused to make Remus more comfortable by pretending things were fine. "Oh…I've been upstairs helping the kids with that clock. You know, the one that is trying to kill us all. Seems to have stopped for now. I see you've been pacing. Still. The whole day this time?"  
  
"I can't help it. I'm going even more insane in here. And Harry's trial. And I'm trying to sort out how to go."  
  
"I thought you agreed with Dumbledore?"  
  
Sirius didn't answer him. He just dragged his hands through his wild hair and sighed dramatically, restarting his well beaten path through the upstairs sitting room. Remus eyed him nervously. They had been here for three weeks. The longest anyone had been around Sirius since school, really. It was not pleasant. They hadn't had time, beyond that moment in the willow, to hash things out. They hadn't had the ability to remember and heal, to fix and solve. There were many so things he wanted to say, conversations they needed to have, but he wasn't sure where to begin. He didn't know where they stood. With Sirius Black, that was not a good thing. That was always dangerous. He assumed that much had not changed

"You need a haircut," he finally settled on, trying for light humour and sitting down on the sofa in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

Unfortunately, Sirius was not in the mood for light humour. He froze mid pace, spun violently, and looked at Remus with eyes that had been burned into his memory for nearly two decades. The age and the fear and the anger that now sat behind them didn't change their original intensity, didn't make them less startling and soul destroying. It was possible that those things made the intensity less easy to read, but Remus was having an increasingly difficult time ignoring those eyes nonetheless.

"You," Sirius said finally, reading Remus' face and relaxing slightly. "Need to get over your moratorium on irons."  
  
Remus smirked and folded his legs beneath him, inhaling deeply, but, he hoped, silently.  
  
"I have to leave again in a couple days. You are going to listen to them and stay here, right?"  
  
"Sure, we can pretend that if you want," Sirius said, still staring at Remus. "Where to this time?"  
  
"North Hampton."  
  
"I see. Moony-"  
  
But he froze as he heard footsteps, loud trampling children coming up the stairs. And they had no more conversations that week. There were no more opportunities as the hearing happened, as the prefect badges arrived, and the boggart was dealt with. Or, there were opportunities, but they ignored them steadily and with great industry. Suddenly, they were going to Kings Cross, and suddenly, Remus left for days, leaving Sirius with a nod and an ache in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

 When Remus returned to Grimmauld Place two weeks later-- looking gaunt, drawn, exhausted, a few new scratches on his face-- Sirius had been largely alone for six days. The Weasely's had returned home, and the order only met every couple of days, arguing in the now dark kitchen. Letters from Harry were sparse, and ordering notes from Dumbledore were not the same. The rest of the time, he sulked in the empty quiet. Sirius was handling the time in silence as well as was to be expected.

Which was to say, not well at all.

So, the day that Remus returned, the second he heard the screaming of Mrs. Black as he dispelled the wards, Sirius ran down the stairs and beamed in open-faced joy at the grumpy, grumbly old man before him. Sirius thought about the heat that pooled in his cheeks objectively. How did it work, this emotion? The reality that he still _wanted_ Remus. Possibly right now. And definitely as much as he had wanted him the first time, the day all those years ago when he'd finally cornered him long enough to change the parameters of their friendship.

That day had been much like this one, Sirius thought, still grinning like a loon. Remus had been on edge from the imminent full moon, and had left the common room after dinner. Sirius followed, because he always followed, but the next steps were new to both of them. Outside the Quidditch hut. There were walls, and fumbled curses, and apology after apology.

And really, that was the problem. Remus had always been this person; endlessly worried about everyone but himself, completely convinced he wasn't worth very much. It hurt Sirius in every pore of his body, since Remus Lupin was worth absolutely _everything_.

Suddenly, the unspoken conversations they needed to have, the million pound weight that was the last twelve years, and the truths and lies and anger, it all vanished.  
  
Sirius gave his head a vigorous shake to knock him out of his staring trance, forced his feet into action, and bounded down the stairs, straight into Remus. He enfolded him into a bear hug, a signature hug borrowed from another time, another life, and he felt Remus' breath catch and not restart.

"Padfoot," was all he seemed to be able to say. 

"Sorry," Sirius breathed, clinging in a way he knew was desperate and seeming to be completely unable to stop it. He pressed his face into Remus' neck, inhaling deeply, and rocking his own core when he smelt only book leather and pine tree, and a tiny hint of lavender whose source was still a mystery. "Moony. Still so Moony."  
  
"We...It's not…" Remus tried, pulling himself slightly more rigid, and far too upright for Sirius' liking.  
  
"I know. Shut up."  
  
Suddenly, and yet not at all suddenly, Sirius had Remus against the wall, had the scars he had memorized long ago beneath his fingers, had his face in pliable hands.  
  
"Stop me, Moony."  
  
"I don't remember how," Remus said, fingers gripping bony hips that had always been angular and sharp, but now felt too light, too scrawny. He pulled gently, found Sirius' lips with his own, and felt the exhaustion disappear immediately in _relief._

It didn't feel like twelve years had passed when Sirius pressed firmly back against him, lower half pressed nearly painfully, arms caught between them and fingers looped messily together. It could have been days, hours, minutes. It could have been seconds since this particular warm rightness had been stealing his every breath.

When tongue gently, questioningly pressed against barely parted lips, Remus almost forgot the confused anger he was still feeling, the decade of inaccurate betrayal, the belief that his best friend-and-more had been the downfall of everything. Almost. It was there, it was still there, and it would be there when they weren't up against this wall. For the moment, though, Remus was able to do what only Sirius had ever been able to make him do; he stopped thinking.

His hands were now in Sirius' too long hair, and he was not going to let go for anything. But he also was sick of Mrs. Black's screaming, of the cold and damp wall. He pushed back against the slightly shorter man with vicious force, dragging a moan from him as memory flooded back into them both. This had always been their dynamic in this space.

Remus Lupin was wild, strong fierce. Only those who knew him well ever found this out, because strangers bought the rumpled, silent, reserved boy he'd always tried to seem. Those people were wrong. Remus Lupin was still a werewolf. He was a million things beyond it, but there was no denying that he was also the beast. Lupin was not weak. He was so powerful, so strong, and extremely dangerous. With great amounts of effort and worrying and pain, he had formed a shell for others to see. A  weak, rumpled, innocuous boy who loved books.

Sirius had managed, all those years ago, to convince _the_ _wolf_ to stop treating _the_ _dog_ as painted glass, leading to rough fights and growled wounds when they were both changed. Convincing Remus _the boy_ , however, to treat him with unreserved passion had been the far more difficult task. The unravelled Lupin was a terror to behold, and seeing it again now, in the man he had become-- a man who had become impossibly more tightly wound-- undid Sirius Black.

Lupin pushed and scrambled, backing them both down the corridor and through the first door he came across, hilariously leading to the grimy and slightly dusty formal sitting room that had been Mrs. Black's pride and joy. A classic Pureblood palace, full of powerful artifacts and expensive, tasteless furniture. Like the hard floral settee that Remus backed onto, dragging a Sirius with him, mouths still attached as though necessary for breathing.

"Remus," Sirius ground out. "Remus, so messy. Bad idea."  
  
"Yes," Remus said, re-entwining their fingers and pulling Sirius back to him. His other hand now wandered lower, pressing carefully into the ridge of Sirius' cloth covered erection and eliciting a sharp intake of breath.  
  
Encouraged, he pushed half-heartedly at the fabric of Sirius' loose trousers, finally drawing his other hand back too, now convinced that Sirius wasn't going to pointlessly stop kissing him again, and pushing the trousers down. Finding no pants beneath, he gasped himself when his hands found purchase on hot, already damp skin.

He moved to his own trousers and somehow got them off too. He reached back, now biting and nipping at Sirius, who was writhing wildly against him. One thing was very clear to him, suddenly; this was not going to be some languid, drawn out love affair. They may not be teenagers any more, but neither was either of them patient in this moment. Remus vowed to waste no more time.

The time had been wasted enough.

He reached up and grasped the still familiar weight of Sirius' hard, leaking cock. He stroked back on foreskin that had once shocked him, found a ridge that had plagued his dreams for years, fondled a tip that twitched into the heat of his hand the same way it always had. All the while, the noises that escaped Sirius' now distracted mouth were filthy and sad all at once, and Remus' heart ached painfully.

Sirius' head was suddenly in the crook of his neck, biting almost tenderly as he took Remus' cock into his own hand and applied the same loving attention that he was receiving. It was suddenly very difficult for Remus to focus, which would never do. Using his free hand, he pulled Sirius' head off his neck by the hair and nearly whimpered when black, lust-filled eyes met his own.  
  
"Together?" Remus all but growled.  
  
With barely a nod, Sirius' grip shifted so that he held them both. Remus' head flew back against his will at the sudden increase in feeling and friction, but he forced himself to look back up. He wanted, after all, to see this face. He had _always_ wanted to see this face. Even after, he had needed so much to just see the face of Sirius Black, to check the subtle shift of those kind eyes, to know what was the truth; at first, he hadn't thought that the story he had been given could possibly be true.

Now, though, that face was giving away nothing. The eyes he was trying to read were too hooded, too haunted. Remus rocked forward, joining his hand with Sirius', taking hold of as much of the hard, hot, silky smoothness as he could.

He shifted his arm slightly, and Sirius called out in lust. All rhythm disappeared as they both moved their hands faster and faster, as their bodies rocked together in fevered memory. Sirius suddenly all but lost his ability to hold himself up, and their chests were crashed together too, making a messy and confusing kiss at an awkward angle the only option available. Remus' mouth was almost completely open as he murmured illiterate sounds.

"S-stop muttering those things, Moony, I- so close," Sirius growled. Remus smirked and redoubled the efforts of the arm trapped between their bodies.

"So do it, Padfoot. With me," Remus was barely audible through shaky breath and muttered gasps. The feeling was too much and not enough, and painful and perfect, and utterly terrifying. Nothing had changed even a little bit since the last time he'd had this cock in his grasp.

With increased speed, and increased incoherence, neither man lasted more than a few more seconds before, simultaneously, _they_ shuttered, _they_ screamed, _they_ moaned, and _they_ came. Heat curled in the very based of Remus' core, traitorous and tortured, and Sirius collapsed at once, pressing down into a nearly suffocating grasping way, desperation palpable in the clinging of limbs, the beating of his heart.

Neither moved, neither spoke.

For long minutes, Remus just accepted the embrace, tracing the scars on Sirius' back unconsciously, not needing to look to know where they resided, crisscrossing haphazardly over carefully tattooed skin.

Finally, feeling awkward as he regained his sense, Sirius rolled to the side, but forced himself not to leap up and run away. Remus of yore had loved afterglow most of all. He wasn't going to ruin that for him if it was still true. This had been so inadvisable, and he didn't want to waste what may be his only chance to lie this close, to smell Moony, to listen to his shuddery breathing as his body relaxed..

 As the feeble light from the street waned even more, Remus finally cleared his throat gently in that way he had always done before breaking up what had become an uncomfortable silence.

"I am hoping no one else is here?"  
  
"Just Kreatcher. I- you're safe."  
  
"Indeed. So…um, Sirius-"  
  
"I know. I didn't mean to…jump you like that."  
  
"Yes, you did. You've always jumped me. Anything else would have been confusing. It's nice to know we're still good at that."  
  
"Well, I'm sure that you've had a bit more practice than I have."  
  
"Don't be stupid. There's been…just don't be stupid."  
  
Sirius looked down at the man beside him, whose face was now tilted to the ceiling, not meeting his eyes.  
  
"Moony, you are kidding me right? No one else?"  
  
"Well.…No."  
  
"You thought I had betrayed our best friends-"  
  
"It didn't matter."  
  
"Now who is being stupid," Sirius sighed, turning back to the ceiling himself, a little bit angry now. "I guess we have a lot to talk about, don't we?"  
  
"No, I think we're fine."  
  
Sirius' head snapped down, and he burst out laughing when he found a light smirk-- _his favourite_ smirk-- planted on Moony's face.  
  
"Of course we do, Padfoot. Of course we do. But twelve years of unspoken truths can surely wait until I've had a nap?"  
  
Sirius moved to sit up, muttering of course, and causing a panicked grip on his arm.  
  
"Stay," Remus said quickly, afraid suddenly, as he only ever was when Sirius was involved.

"Oh, I have no intention of going anywhere, my crazy Moony. But I think we can do much better than this awful room, don't you?"  
  
He dragged Remus up the stairs, nearly boneless as he was, the exhaustion, temporarily forgotten, back in full force, accompanied by the sleepiness of recreational activities. Safely installed in Sirius' bed, he curled comfortably into the side of the warm body beside him.  
  
"You're still too hot, silly dog-man."  
  
"Oy, didn't see you complaining a few minutes ago."  
  
"Sleeping, Sirius. Hush."  
  
"Why you insolent little-"  
  
"Hush."

* * *

Sirius let Remus sleep, an almost-but-not-quite-peaceful expression playing at his face, only occasionally interrupted by nightmares. When he heard Mrs. Black roar to life, he quietly but quickly removed himself from the bedroom. Seeing as it was Dumbledore, he didn't exactly want company on the second floor. He finds the old wizard staring stormily into space ahead of him; clearly, this was going to be one of those days. The ones where the jovial bearded man of their past had disappeared. Sirius decided to head him off. He wasn't in the mood. 

"Lupin arrived this afternoon, Dumbledore. If that's what you're asking. He's gone to sleep, you'll have to wait if you need to speak with him."  
  
Sirius' words, spoken from the last step of the landing, seemed to shake Dumbledore from his brooding. He studied his face for a moment before breaking into a careful grin.

"Good, good. I see you two have also begun working things through. I can't pretend to not be relieved. We need to be on one side, with no secrets."

Sirius startled slightly, but forced himself remain still, made himself seem like he didn't care. Normally, this was his trademark. He suspected he failed a slight bit, seeing as it was Dumbledore, but he tried his best as he replied, "Lupin and I are fine. We're on one side."  
  
"You're getting there, of that I am certain. Right. I shall be off then. I mostly wanted to make sure he was here. You have remembered, I assume, what day it is tomorrow?"  
  
Of course Sirius knew. Even during the long months in Azkaban where he had not seen the light of outside, day or night, he had known what day it was. It was like _he_ turned, he became so restless. He gave a rough nod of his head.

"It hurts him, more than it used to. As they age- just, take care of him, will you Sirius? You know better than anyone that he protects himself to the point of self-destruction."  
  
Without waiting for confirmation, Dumbledore spun on his heel, whacked Mrs. Black with his wand, silencing her instantly, and walked about the door. Sirius was left shaking his head as he slowly retreated back up the stairs. When he returned to his bedroom, he found a dozy Remus, facing the middle of the bed, watching the door. He smiled lazily and made no move to get up, so Sirius returned to the bed.  
  
"Dumbledore, I assume?"  
  
"Yes. And he seems to know...something."  
  
"Well, of course. He's Dumbledore. It's his thing. He just _knows_ things. He still here?"  
  
"No, he left. We have to talk, but…do you want to not, until after tomorrow?"  
  
Remus' expression went dark, the same dark that it had since he was twelve and that question was asked.  
  
"I've been thinking-"  
  
"Course you have, you're Moony."  
  
"Shut up, Padfoot," Remus said, although his Marauder grin returned, and Sirius felt vindicated. "Remember when James used to make us play that stupid game? In the willow, right before the change?"  
  
"Well, that's a brilliant idea, really. No wonder we always kept you, Moony. With the memory and the books. Okay, so we play the 'truth' game. We can do that. We can even pretend to be normal and not childish. Same rules? One sentence, no follow ups?"  
  
"I think so," Remus said, a sad sort of smile on his face now, as though he hadn't been expecting such easy agreement.  
  
"I want to start."  
  
Remus nodded, completely unsurprised. The game of secret telling, speaking the unspoken things everyone had between friends, into a room containing four people who would very shortly be animals, with brains that only dealt with instinct and base need, without much processing of emotions; it had been a staple of their friendship, the one that had turned them into brothers, brothers until Remus had gone and ruined it all by being far too adorable for Sirius to ignore. At the time, he had almost been annoyed at the shift, for as much as he needed Remus, it had been a painful change for many months. Friends to more-than-friends was a hard reality of adolescence, and they hadn't known how to do it well.

Sirius took a deep breath now. There was no point in dwelling on that shift. It hardly mattered now. He looked away from Remus' face, because if he kept meeting those eyes, he would never be able to start. He inhaled, and whispered. 

"I miss James. And it hurts, sometimes, talking to Harry…they look too much alike."  
  
"I'm afraid I didn't miss you enough, properly. And that if I had, I could have saved you sooner."  
  
"Remus, that's-"  
  
"NO. No follow-up. That's the point, Pads."  
  
Sirius chuffed in irritation, but conceded the point. He'd just be sneaky to play by the rules. He tried again, saying the first thing that came to mind..  
  
"I meant to not act on this…on the past. I feel like there's no way we won't mess it up." 

"I think I've loved you for fifteen years." 

Sirius' eyes snapped to Remus' face. He suddenly felt like they were six feet apart, instead of six inches. He inched forward. He felt, surprisingly, sheepish and sort of speechless.  
  
"I never had time to figure out how I felt. About anything. I was just- I was trying to-"  
  
"Survive."  
  
"Yes. But now- Remus, you have to promise me something."  
  
"Sirius, that's not-"  
  
"Shh. Promise me something."  
  
Remus stared at him, hard, before nodding a tiny-Moony nod, one that only a few people in the world would have even seen. Or, really only Sirius, now.  
  
"You have to promise me, no matter what happens from here…I mean, it's all starting again, and we can't…If something happens to me, you have to promise you'll move on. Properly this time."  
  
"Well, you complete arse, I am obviously not going to promise you that."  
  
"Remus-"  
  
"I can't, can I now? Because I'd want you to promise me the same thing."

Sirius looked down at his own chest. Of course, that was true. And Moony knew as well as anyone that he would never do that.  
  
"It's _not the same._ I'm…well, I'm done now, aren't I? Slightly mad, prisoner for a decade, disowned by the Purebloods? Where do I go from here. But you, Bloody Lupin…I can't believe you just- Why the fucking hell can't you ever see what you are worth, Remus John Lupin? All because of the stupid furry little-"  
  
"Don't," Remus' tone had shifted to anger, dark and almost unrecognizable. It was the first time since the willow that Sirius felt the decade, the hurt, between them.

"Just don't. And shut up, you fool. You do the exact same thing. You decide to be tragic and unreachable and beyond saving. You've done it since we were children. But it's different this time. It has to end this time, one way or another. We'll try to survive. We won't always be at war. We'll clear your name, no one will try to kill you, you'll be the same mad, miserable, slightly evil, asshole you ever were, and I shall be free to love you for decades and decades after."

"Stop saying that."  
  
"What? That I love you? Nope. I refuse. Because I should have told you when we were 20. Because I should have told you when we were 17, the first time it was true. And I am no longer young and stupid. So, shut the fuck up and kiss me you fool. Let's just deal with this bullshit argument when it becomes necessary."  
  
"Well.…I mean…fine."  
  
"Good."  
  
Remus was suddenly right up against him again, and all the heat-- both the anger and the passion-- they had disappeared. In their place, there was just perfect comfort, and Sirius' whole body settled and shifted into a feeling he had never felt before. Muscles that had not relaxed in years fizzled down into relaxed ooze, and his jaw released itself.

"Do you know, Sirius? Do you actually realize? Few last truths, then I'm done. I'm here this time…you're safe. You didn't do anything wrong. James doesn't blame you. You…you are loved."  
  
Sirius had endured torture. He had had every spell possible thrown at him under by the Aurors. He had every form of dementor attack possible, save the final one. For more than a decade, he had been driven to near insanity by unimaginable mental torture. But he was pretty sure he had never cried. For whatever reason, tears had always been beyond him. Screaming, begging, pissing himself. These things he had done, but never tears. Never weeping.

Now, though? Fifteen minutes after talking to Remus again, properly talking, not just the random throw away statements that meant nothing, and here he was he was, a messy ball of liquid emotion.

Typical, really.

When Sirius stopped the tears and shut Moony up by shoving him back onto the bed and covering him with every inch of his own body, 'typical' felt like the most important word. Regardless of what happened next-- because Sirius had a feeling that something was going to happen next-- they were here, for now, as Padfoot and Moony. The moon and the star, tied together by invisible threads that understood each other perfectly. For now, it was more than enough. 


End file.
